Let's Keep it Simple
by Paper Train
Summary: But it's really anything but that isn't it? When you feel forgotten, and when you feel like you've forgotten, the solution isn't always simple. Misty's life makes her feel like she's stuck running circles in a blank room with no exit. It won't be simple or easy, but new friends and a new region might be exactly what it takes to make her feel like she's going somewhere again. No OCs
1. Chapter 1

AN: My first pokemon story! Of course I don't own pokemon. This story is based of various aspects in the manga, anime, and games.

I actually have no set pairing for this story though it might seem like she's getting really close to some characters. When I started plotting this, I had no pairing in mind, so I don't know whom she might end up with if at all. Part of it was because I read a quote from Miyasaki that said something about wanting to write stories that defy the unwritten law where a boy and a girl featured in the same movie need to get together. And then something about how he wanted to write stories with two people who simply inspire each other to live. I thought that was pretty cool.

I was also inspired by other fanfics such as "Always" and "Vanilla Storm" by ohlookrandom, and "Phone Calls" by Hiasobi.

I TRIED using italics and borders, but sometimes they don't show up. Sorry about that.

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Chapter 1

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It's when she's beaten the fifteenth trainer in her winning streak she realizes that something's not right. The trainer simply leaves with promises of returning for a win as she recalls her pokemon back into its pokeball, and she smiles at his back as she walks towards her gym's personal mini healing facility. She really does hope he comes back—the trainer that is. It gets lonely staying in the gym all day, even with your pokemon with you. With the exception of the occasional trainer and her own voice, she hardly ever hears a sound while she's in her gym. The gurgles, cries, and roars of her pokemon fill the emptiness on occasion, and the nearly silent pull of the water as it swells, dips, and shifts is what's left when all else is quiet.

When she battles the silence is overrun; kicked off its thrown and its reign ended for a short period of time as she and her opponent shout commands and their pokemon trade blows. Battle cries, pained cries, scared cries, and the occasional explosion rock the gym to its foundation until the battle is done. And once the battle is finished, no matter who came out the victor, to Misty silence wins again as it takes its place on a pedestal that seems to stand imposingly behind her wherever she goes inside the gym.

Misty isn't the type to completely hold back. She paces herself, chooses her pokemon in accordance to her opponents skill, and battles at levels she knows will help the trainer improve without overwhelming them. That is the job of a gym leader. Not to pulverize trainers to demoralizing effects, but to help them improve. She enjoys it when trainers keep asking for rematches and she can visibly see how much better they've gotten. Some never win, others do win eventually and, even then, they keep asking for rematches. It makes her feel so happy because she feels like she's apart of something bigger than herself.

It takes her back to the days when a trainer clad in red beat her using a Charmeleon.

She'll never admit it but she's grown tired and bored. As though she's stuck in a runt. Like she'll never get any better while being tied down to the gym. She's good, too good for some trainers, but she wants to get better. Seeing trainers improve is usually the only thing that makes her feel happy being a gym leader anymore, happy and jealous. She tried to hide it, of course, but Misty's never been good at keeping a poker face. Despite specializing in water-type pokemon, her temper, passion, and emotions burn hotter than a Charizard's overheat. That's why she avoids Green at summits, conferences, and other league business affairs. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that something's wrong with her but Green is practically genius and she knows he'd be able to figure it out before even looking at her.

Her teeth grit as she takes her pokeballs from the healing tray and releases her pokemon into the gym's aquarium. Green wouldn't care. Green shouldn't care. Just thinking about him reminded her of Blue, Yellow, and Red. He reminded her with his detached conversations and gaze that she wasn't apart of their world. That she'd never get as close as she wants to them. If she had been a joking type of person, with the lame puns and not-so-witty references, she would tell you that Green turns her green. He definitely riles up that angry green pokemon inside her. Why? It's because he knows things. Things she should also know. Like where Red is at that moment. How Red's doing presently. What Red is planning for the future. Simple things that any friend should already know and he has to say, every single time, "didn't you know?"

No. No, she didn't know. Because Red never called her as much as he called Green, Blue, and Yellow. He kept more in touch with those kids from Johto than he did her and he certainly told them much more than what he told her. She'd be lying if she said she didn't care about Red a lot. Not like a brother and not like a friend; more than infatuation, but not quite love either. How could you love someone you barely saw? Misty didn't think it was possible but she was sure she was pretty darn close.

But she was also pretty darn close to giving up too. She was so tired of everything; especially waiting for the day that maybe he'd give her the chance to get closer to him. Misty knows that there's a lot you have to do that you might not want to do to get what you want, but she's not sure if waiting anymore is worth it. Especially since now there's something she wants more than a chance with elusive Kanto League Champion.

She wants adventures, new experiences, new motivation. She wants to loose—loose and then maybe loose again until she can finally beat whomever this imaginary person is. Her fantasies no longer come in visions filled sunsets and sparkling oceans standing next the strong, silent figure that's captured her fancy for so long. More often now are they filled with traveling, loosing, getting stronger, fighting rivals, gaining friends, and winning.

She wants to feel like a trainer again.

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A trainer's life is never easy, especially on the feet. They've been conditioned to be able to walk the longest, roughest, and most thankless of journeys. But even the feet of a trainer aren't made of titanium.

This is the condition any passerby would find a particular young Johto trainer and his typhlosion as they walked up the dirt path of Route 5.

Gold was a hearty young man; mischievous, confident, and full of life. He was one of the best (THE best, if you asked him) trainers in Johto, and he wasn't against showing it. But even a trainer such as him can be brought down to his knees if his feet can't hold him up.

"Aaaaaaah!" He groaned loudly in anguish. "How far is Cerulean City anyway?! It feels like we've already walked across Kanto! Huh, Explotaro?" By his side, Explotaro nodded heavily in agreement, his own stamina sunken with his trainer's. Gold's gaze focused hazily on the road in front of them, the image shifting left and right as if he'd been hit with a psychic attack from the heat.

"Cerulean City…is like a port…right? It's by the sea…right?" He drawled out, only half aware of what he was saying. His typhlosion didn't pay half a mind to his trainer's dazed questions, fully conscious of the fact that his trainer was only speaking from fatigue as his body began to slump over.

"And that means water…and a nice breeze. Food…and…pretty girls…" then, as if he had said some kind of magical word, his legs moved with a vigor and ferocity that wasn't there before.

"Come on Explotaro!" He yelled. "Cerulean City! Once we get to Cerulean City all our problems will be solved! Gone! Let's go!" Explotaro, not easily so tempted by the promise of food and the opposite sex, let out a cry of protest.

"Huh? What's up Explotaro?" As he watched his typhlosion shake his head and look at him with pleading eyes, Gold sighed and pulled his typhlosion's pokeball from his bag.

"Okay fine—return." A familiar red light shot out from his pokeball and enveloped his typhlosion until it seemed the large pokemon had been absorbed by the red light and returned back into its pokeball. Gold held the pokeball to his face.

"Jerk. Making me walk the rest of the way by myself." Gold mumbled as he stuffed the pokeball back into his bag. He threw his arms in the air and bent backwards to stretch his stiff muscles, a stiff moan sounding behind closed lips.

"Okay! Ready to go!" He shouted, then adjusting the strap of his bag.

"Good food and pretty girls here I come!"

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There was a heavy clicking sound as Misty turned the key to lock the doors of her gym. For a while, she just stood there looking at the heavy iron lock preventing anyone without a key from entering. She had thought that getting out of the gym for a little while would help her with her mood but, as she stood just staring, she wasn't so sure anymore. She turned and walked away from her gym, looking to maybe rediscover her city.

The little stub of a tree that barely made it up to her knee last year was now nearly her height. The small family who owned and turned their house into a pokemon daycare center changed their white picket fence to an elegant looking iron fence that rose and formed an archway above the entrance gate into the front yard. The kid who was always talking about buying new skates to replace her worn down pair was now cruising around in a snazzy looking bike. The old antique rug shop was torn down and replaced with a new cute looking bakery.

She had half of her mind wondering how she never noticed any of these changes, but it didn't really do much to lighten her mood. As she walked down a familiar line towards a small coffee house on the seaside, she wished that someone—anyone—would drop by.

Someone by the name of Red

Her eyes widened and her heart stopped sharply as she realized her train of thoughts. Her shook her head vigorously and gave her chest a few soft pounds, invoking some pedestrians to stop and look at her. After she reassured a kind older gentleman she was okay she sulked as she walked in the premises of the coffee house and took a seat on their outdoor patio overlooking the sea. She slouched back into her seat.

What was so special about Red anyway? Besides the fact that he's probably the strongest trainer in history? Or the fact that he defeated the mass international crime organization Team Rocket? Sure, those are more than note worthy accomplishments, but they shouldn't be enough to keep her so strung on him for so long when he didn't even bother to call her and talk to her. She knew she admired him a lot, but what she didn't know was if they were even friends anymore? Can they call each other friends with such lack of communication? As she reflected on this, she realized that really good friends don't even need to talk to each other regularly to feel like they're friends. It should be that they could go months, maybe even years without seeing each other but, once their united, it's almost as if they were never apart for more than a few days. Good friends never felt lonely when they were separated. So maybe they weren't friends—she and Red—because she felt so lonely, so terribly lonely. Or maybe it's just her romantic feelings getting in the way of that.

Misty groaned, covered her eyes, and nearly slammed her head on the table.

What was so wrong with her? This was pissing her off! Arceus help her; she couldn't keep living like this.

As she sat there in silent, lonely rage—her mind blank but her feelings distracting her and rendering her senses useless—she didn't notice as a figure dragged his way to her table looking pitiful and as dehydrated as dried fruit. Pedestrians and patrons who happened to by out that day began to wonder if there was something toxic in the sunshine, some radiation in the wind to make people act so strangely today. Many backed away and pulled their children and pokemon aside as the shriveled young man made his way onto the coffee house patio and took a seat in the only available chair; one situated in front of the strange young woman who looked like a hitmonchan had mach-punched her chest.

Birds of a feather flock together, they supposed.

A young, newly employed waiter was pushed into the part of the sacrificial lamb by his employer and made his way shakily towards the duo. He stood right in front of their table, shaking harder than anything anyone at that coffee house has ever seen, and opened his mouth to let out a scratchy repetition of the first syllable in his usual "what would like to order?" question. Misty could only take so much of the 'wha-wha-wha-wha" that, by the time the waiter had spent two minutes failing to get past the first syllable, she snapped her head up and barked at the waiter.

"No! I don't want anything! You can go and leave me alone!" She roared with a ferocity that could send a Gyarados swimming for cover. Misty's roar was super effective and nearly had the waiter fainting. Down to his last legs, the waiter turned to the person sitting opposite of her and tried to say something, only succeeding in flapping his mouth uselessly. It was then that Misty noticed someone sitting across from her.

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The employer at the coffee house had long since called his waiter back and Misty now sat and watched as a familiar face from Johto ate his roasted chicken with cheese and tomato panini.

"Mm! Thanks Miley! I thought I was going to starve!" The younger of the two said while his mouth was still full. Misty's lip twitched, wanting to curve into a sneer from his bad table manners.

"Whatever. You should know better than to travel with no money on you," she said plainly, stirring her pecha-oran berry smoothie with her straw.

"My name's 'Misty,' by the way. Not 'Miley." Gold looked up at her, a string of cheese hanging from the corner of his mouth.

"Right, right. Sorry about that," he apologized with a wide smile before going back to devouring his panini. Now that he didn't look like a shriveled up fruit, Misty was able to observe him carefully and compare him to the twelve-or-so year-old who had barged into her gym and demanded for a gym battle those few years ago. He was taller now; he stood a whole head taller than her, which was tremendous progress when compared to the time where he stood a little past her shoulder. His face had lost some of that boyish roundness to it but, for some reason, it was still undeniably boyish. Maybe it was the eyes? Since they were pretty large for being on the fiercer side of things as far as eye shape went. Or maybe it was because his eyes were so bright, but their gold color might be a huge factor to that. Maybe it was because he still wore his hair with one huge fringe off to one side of his face with his hat still on backwards and his goggles lying on top of them. Whatever it was, it didn't hold her curiosity for long as she soon grew bored and began to stare at sea view.

Gold wasn't as stupid as many like to think he his. No, he wasn't stupid; he just didn't think things through all the way. But it doesn't take much in-depth thinking and planning ahead to pick up that something was wrong in the silence surrounding the two of them. For a moment, he wondered if she was upset that he got her name wrong. However, judging from the fact that she hadn't corrected him right away, he figured that couldn't be it. He didn't really know her well—and most of what he knew he had heard from Lyra—but she seemed like the type of person who would have a quick temper and would have corrected him right away and quite loudly if that were the issue. But no, she had just brushed it off and corrected him about traveling without money, bringing up the mistake last before she went silent.

The name wasn't the problem, but there was something seriously wrong here.

Before he could think on it anymore, Misty's chair screeched against the patio as she moved to stand up. Gold quickly swallowed his food so he could speak.

"Wait! Where are you going?" He questioned. Misty shrugged her shoulders.

"Back to the gym I guess. If you're worried about being left with the bill, don't worry about it. I paid upfront while you were busy chugging down water." Without so much as a "bye," she left him on the coffee house patio, her back screaming at him that she wasn't in the right.

If he had to be more specific and go on a limb, he would have said that her back was screaming that she was alone.

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When Misty opened up the gym the next day, she wasn't even expecting a trainer to come. The day before had been hot, but today it was just too dangerous to go wondering down any of the routes. She was actually dozing off with her feet in the gyms battle pool when the entrance was thrown open and the loud bam had made her jump out of the pool.

There, standing with his hands in his pockets and his skateboard held steady under one foot, was Gold.

Suffice to say, she wasn't pleasantly surprised.

"What are you doing here?" She demanded. Her voice lacked and true outrage behind it that was nearly her trademark, and that couldn't go unnoticed by either trainer in the gym.

Gold shrugged, smirk in place as he kicked his skateboard up and walked inside the gym and looked around. He let out a low whistle.

"Wow. This place has definitely been upgraded since the last time I've seen it," he stated. Misty sighed and slipped her feet into her sandals before making her way towards him.

"Yeah. Sometime last year I decided to renovate to make more room for my pokemon to swim. Keeping them all in one tank doesn't give them much space." Her explanation was true enough, but she left out the fact that she was hoping to maybe catch new pokemon to add to the gym. It's too bad she doesn't have the opportunity to travel outside of Cerulean City and that she's caught nearly every water pokemon you could find in Cerulean waters without venturing too far out to sea.

"Misty." Gold's voice snapped her to attention and she focused on him, finding him standing on the opponent's platform of her gym. Misty raised an eyebrow at him, but he just nodded her over to the leader's platform. He dug in his bag, his hands finding the pokemon he was looking for with ease, and drew it out, presenting it too her. With a sigh, Misty made her way to her own platform and drew her own pokeball, really the only one she had with her in its pokeball and not in the gym's other aquariums.

"What's the point of this?" She asked. She had yet to press the button on her pokeball to enhance its size and was still twirling its more compact form in her fingers.

Gold shrugged again, smirk never leaving his face as he released his pokemon.

"You ready to go Mantaro?" He asked energetically. Misty winced as his loud voiced bounced off her gym walls. The pokemon nodded and have an affirmative cry, looking at her with a determined gaze. Misty gazed back, not half so determined but curious as to when Gold had gotten himself a mantine.

"Hey!" Gold called when she still hadn't released her pokemon. "Are you gonna battle or what?"

"Or what' sounds more like it," was her reply. A scowl found it's way onto Gold's face.

"Well! You have nothing to loose!" Misty crossed her arms over her chest, showing no sign on appeasing him.

"What do I have to gain?" Gold's scowl twitched as he realized that enticing her for a battle wouldn't be easy. His first thought was: what the hell? Trainers he had run into before coming here had said that the Cerulean City gym leader (a.k.a. Misty) had always accepted rematches, even when the opponent had already beaten her. So why isn't she battling him?

"Okay! How about this: if you win in a singles match, six on six, I'll leave you alone. But if I win, I get to come to the Cerulean gym as much as I want and stay as long as I want and you can't kick me out! That a deal?" It seems his change in tactic had worked, as Misty's shoulders twitched and her face contorted into an odd face of displeasure.

Misty pressed the button on her pokeball, enlarging it, and threw it in the air to release her starmie.

"With something like that, I really can't afford to loose," she said. Briefly, she examined Gold's mantine. It didn't seem like he used it very much, as it wasn't near the level she was expecting of his pokemon, but that didn't mean it wasn't strong in its own right. Still, she scowled. Was Gold going easy on her? Not only to come at her with the weakest (by Gold's standards) pokemon on his team, but with a water-type pokemon as well?

"Starmie, tackle!" She yelled, insulted by the very notion. Gold smirked, glad and excited that she was agreeing to battle.

"Dodge Mantaro and use supersonic!"

"Out of the water starmie!" She called loudly. She had figured out a long time ago that supersonic and her gym was a strange combination. Her gym echoed, so supersonic was nearly impossible to avoid while out of the water, so the only way to escape was diving in. However, in vice-versa, sound echoed in water too. So the only way to escape it then was to jump out of the water. Starmie followed quickly and was out of the water and up in the air to avoid being forced into confusion.

"Oh not you don't!" Gold shouted. "Mantaro, use bullet seed!"

"Counter with swift and follow with tackle!" Bullet seeds and glowing stars bounced off each other and starmie dived back into the water and began to charge towards mantine with a tackle.

"Counter with take down Mantaro!" Mantaro met Mist's starmie head on and managed to overpower the star shaped pokemon, sending it reeling back.

"Starmie!" Misty yelled. She looked into the water for starmie, and, seeing it spin in the water to let her know it was okay, she sighed in relief.

"Take down again!" As Misty saw Gold's Mantine charge towards starmie, she waited for it to come closer.

"Dodge!" She yelled as Gold's mantine got close enough. "And use flash canon!"

"Flash canon?" Gold mumbled under his breath. Starmie's attack landed a good hit and his mantine was forced to fallback with the total damage dealt to each pokemon now even. Gold wondered to himself when Misty's starmie had learned flash canon, because he certainly couldn't remember her using it when they first battled.

"Go starmie!"

"Use giga impact!"

"Out of the water!" Misty yelled in a slight panic, knowing how strong that attack was. Gold smirked, face set in competitive determination.

"Hyrdo pump!"

"Use ice beam to freeze it starmie!" Misty yelled. Starmie's ice beam had frozen a direct path to Gold's mantine, and Misty wasn't about to let that go to waste. "Now ride it straight to mantine!"

Gold pointed straight at starmie and shouted, "Use bullet seed!"

"Keep pushing forward starmie and tackle it into the water!" Starmie, being ever loyal to Misty's command, continued it's rapid approach to Mantaro, even while taking damage from the grass type move being directed at it and tackled Gold's mantine into the water.

"Rapid spin now!" Gold's teeth grit as he watched his Mantaro get caught in a whirlpool. _While using rapid spin_, he thought, _starmie has to stay in the water_. As Gold tried to weigh his options, he assessed the strength on his opponent's rapid spin. _She's gotten stronger than before_, he realized. _Mantaro won't be able to break out of that current to use any physical attacks and elemental attacks would affect the both of them_. Gold's lips stretched into a worried smile. _Maybe I shouldn't have chosen Mantaro first._

Misty surveyed the seen with strict focus. She was watching; watching Gold's mantine, waiting for it to get dizzy.

"Use supersonic again Mantaro!" Gold called. Misty's fingers twitched in surprise and quickly called for a counter.

"Get out of the water and knock Mantaro with you starmie!" She yelled.

"Again?!" Exclaimed Gold, tired and annoyed at Misty for commanding starmie out of the water for the third time in their match. Starmie let out its strange cry and proceeded to spin into its own whirlpool and knock mantine out of the water, flying up with it.

"Use air slash Mantaro!"

"Thunderbolt full power!"

"What!?" Gold yelled. "Thunderbolt?! Since when did your starmie know how to use thunderbolt?!"

"Don't get distracted!" Misty yelled at him. Gold's attention snapped back to the battle quick enough to see his mantine fall into the water, unable to battle. He quickly called back his pokemon.

"Mantaro, return!" Misty did the same with starmie, muttering a soft "you did great" as it was fully placed back in its pokeball.

"You've gotten stronger Misty," Gold commented with a smile. Misty shrugged and got off the platform.

"As strong as I could get being stuck in a gym battling new comers I guess," she said off-handedly as she made her way towards the back of the gym.

"Hey! Where are you going?! Our battle's not done yet!" Gold yelled from his platform.

"I know that," she told him. "I'm going to get my other pokemon." Gold blinked once, then twice, in stupor.

"You…only had one pokemon on you when you entered the battle?" He asked. Misty nodded, stopping in her tracks to speak to him directly.

"That's why I'm going to get my other pokemon." Misty watched as Gold's lips screwed into a squiggly line before he burst out laughing. Misty gazed on, stupefied as the boy laughed and slipped on some water, falling on his back on the opponent's platform.

"That's really stupid!" He commented. "And you tried to correct me?! YOU should know better than to enter a battle without a full party of pokemon!" Misty's face screwed in annoyance and embarrassment as the younger boy laughed.

"It's not like this is an official match or anything!" She yelled in her outrage. Her other pokemon, swimming in some other part of the gym, manage to hear her cry and felt relieved. It sounded like their trainer was getting back to normal.

"Official match or not, you loose," Gold stated as he composed himself. "You entered the battle with only one pokemon, so you can only use that one pokemon. Let's face it, your starmie may be really strong, but it can't stand up against a whole team, especially_ my_ team, by itself." Gold hopped off the opponent's platform and walked his way towards her.

"I hear you got your own small healing facility here; don't be stingy and keep it a secret and let me heal my mantine." Misty's mouth flapped open and closed, trying to think of something to say to him, only to come up empty. In the end, Misty snatched his mantine's pokeball from him and led him to the part of the gym she kept sectioned off for the care of her own pokemon. Setting the pokeball on the healing tray, she gave the button a push and waited for the pokemon to be fully healed. Gold was impressed that she had her own mini-clinic in her gym now, and the jiggle that played once his mantine was fully healed, which was exactly like the one played at pokemon centers, was a nice touch.

"I wasn't actually expecting to beat you. I'm surprised you chose a newcomer on your team to start the battle," said Misty. Gold put Mantaro's pokeball back into his bag and scratched the back of his head.

"You could tell?" Misty nodded.

"He wasn't was leveled as much as I expected your pokemon to be by now."

"Well…Mantaro isn't exactly a newcomer, but he is the newest on my team and I don't use him as much as I do my other pokemon. But I guess our loss—even though I technically won, mind you—was partly at fault from me trying to take you one with a water-type pokemon." He admitted. Misty smiled, a haughty, teasing, and completely sincere smile.

"Yeah, that was a really stupid move of you. Have you been thinking to highly of yourself? I'm glad to have knocked you down a pedestal or two."

"Pshh." Gold leaned back against the wall, his hands behind his head. "It won't happen again, partly because I don't plan on battling for a while. My pokemon and I are in need of some R & R, get what I'm saying?" Misty nodded, leaning against the parallel wall, hands in her pockets.

"That's good. Pokemon and trainers alike need a break every once in a while." At this, a devious smile made its way only Gold's face, making Misty immediately regret saying anything.

"I'm glad you think so," Gold said as he got off the wall and looked around exaggeratingly, pretending to scope out and assess the gym. "I think this place would be a good place for my pokemon to relax."

"Wait what?" Misty said, following after him worriedly.

"And not just my pokemon," Gold continued, "but me too!" Misty grabbed his shoulder and turned him around forcefully.

"Hold it kid. Just who said you could relax here whenever you want?" Gold's smirk turned so goofy that Misty wondered if he was possessed by a ghost-type pokemon.

"You agreed. And I won." All of a sudden, memories of their bet raced through her mind. She tried to grab Gold's jacket as quickly as she could but she was already out of her reach and at the door.

"See ya tomorrow Misty!" He called and he laughed gaily out the door.

"Gold! Wait!" Misty chased him as far as the entrance to her gym before he was out of sight. Her teeth grit and she pinched the bridge of her nose. To anyone else who saw her, they would think she was under serious aggravation or was having a bad headache. Well, that was true in a sense.

She was aggravated because, no matter how much she tried, she couldn't bring herself to dislike the fact that she'd have company tomorrow.

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Word Count: 5,107 / Pages: 11

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	2. Chapter 2

**AN: Thank you Ready to fly! Your review made me really happy =) Yeah, there will be a lot of Misty x other fluff going on because, again I really don't know who she'll end up with by the end of this, if at all. This chapter is especially containing some Misty x Gold fluff though, in this fanfiction, their ages are much closer together than they are in the games. But there will by some Misty x Red angsty hints throughout the story. I have a majority already plotted out on paper, I just have trouble writing out the chapters. Anyway, I hope that you and any other person reading this enjoys!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own pokemon and never will.**

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Chapter 2

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When Gold came the next day, Misty was surprised that he had arrived early, as in just when she opened the gym. Like magic, he was inside at eight o'clock on the dot and was roaming around trying to open doors and mess with other things visiting trainer don't usually get to see. In order the preserve the orderliness of her gym (the gym she spends hours cleaning by herself) she offered to take Gold on a tour in the back where she kept a large aquarium for, not only her pokemon, but Professor Oak's too; his water pokemon, at least. After Red defeated Team Rocket, she became fairly acquainted with the renowned professor. In one of their conversations before he became busy with research and conferences, the topic of her gym renovation was struck up. It turned into a deal that Professor Oak would cover half the renovation cost if Misty renovated with the thought of keeping his water pokemon there in mind. The professor also offered to pay for his own pokemon's living expenses, so long as she took care of them and trained them without using them in battle. Before she knew it, her gym was filled with water pokemon she'd never seen before. She was glad to be able to raise them and take care of them, but she couldn't call them hers. She just wished she had caught some of them herself. In the end, however, they did make a pretty amazing sight.

Which led to their current situation. Misty has been watching Gold gaze at the pokemon for three minutes now. Misty cleared her throat loudly from behind him.

"You done gawking yet?" She asked. Gold turned around to face her sharply, startling her with his speed. His eyes were twinkling, and she knew she'd have some explaining to do. No sooner had she realized that, he had pointed to a fierce looking pokemon swimming towards the bottom of the pool like a predator.

"What's that pokemon?!" He asked excitedly. She tilted her head and looked at him strangely, his child like curiosity throwing her off. He was always childish, but he didn't really seem like the type to thirst for knowledge.

"…That's a sharpedo. They're nicknamed 'the bully of the sea' and can't be seen in either Kanto or Johto. They're native to Hoenn," she told him.

"How about those pink and blue slug things moving around at the very bottom?"

"Gastrodon, commonly found in Sinnoh, but I think you can find its pre-evolved form—shellos—in the Johto region and raise it to become a gastrodon. They're genderless; their pink and blue coloring only tell you whether they're from the east or the west."

"What about that pretty one at the top?"

"That's a milotic, also native to Hoenn. They say milotic are like the gyarados of Hoenn," she told him, smiling a little. He stopped gawking at the beautiful pokemon and stared at Misty.

"Why? Is it super strong? It doesn't look anywhere near as scary as a gyarados," he said. Misty chuckled a little before pointing a brown, very inelegant looking pokemon swimming off to the side with an azuril.

"Because, even though milotic are very beautiful, they evolve from feebas, that brown pokemon that looks like someone combined a cookie with a magikarp. Like how milotic are called the gyarados of Hoenn, the feebas are also called the magikarp of Hoenn." Gold made a face and backed away from the display.

"I can't believe such a pretty looking pokemon evolves from…a not so pretty pokemon," he said. Misty shrugged and tugged him by his jacket sleeve to another part of the gym.

"It's pretty hard to believe that such a fearsome pokemon like gyarados would evolve from such a useless pokemon like magikarp. Not that magikarps are terrible, they're just…hard to battle with." Gold snickered behind her.

"Hard to battle with? More like impossible! I bet even Red wouldn't be able to make much use of a magikarp." At Red's name, Misty's fingers twitched, but she shook off the feeling of loneliness before it could even come. She wasn't lonely, not right now at least. At least she had Gold to keep her company for the time being and fill the silence.

"Well…" she drawled out. "To tell you the truth, you could win a battle using a magikarp." Gold looked at her curiously.

"Really? How? Please explain, oh self-proclaimed water pokemon master," he bid, and got a smack on the arm from Misty.

"If your magikarp knows flail, you can use it once its HP is really low to strengthen the attacks power. Once, just as an experiment, I trained another magikarp and leveled it up to thirty without evolving it. When I used it in battle, I would command it to use flail once its HP was low and it would do some pretty decent damage."

"Are you serious?" Gold exclaimed in complete disbelief. Yet Misty nodded.

"And when was this?" Gold asked. Misty waved her hand as if to shoo something away.

"A long, long time ago. I was new trainer back then, but a fisherman I met told me I should try it out and gave me a magikarp."

"What happened to the magikarp?"

"Released it. Even when it liked me and we had battled together for so long, I could tell it would rather be swimming out in the sea." The rest of their tour proceeded with Misty telling him about pokmeon he was curious about and silences that were actually comfortable when neither had anything to say. Besides learning about pokemon from regions he's never been to before, Gold realized that no one he knew had any idea as to how Misty's own journey was. He, Lyra, Silver, and Crystal talked about their own journeys from time to time, he'd hear stories from Red, Blue, Green, and Yellow about their journeys, but he's never heard Misty or any other gym leader go in-depth about the journey they took if they bothered to mention it at all.

"You sure know a lot about these pokemon Misty," Gold stated as he caught the last bit of her explanation of pokemon called walrein. Misty gave him a small smile.

"Well, I am striving to be a water pokemon master. Can't be a water pokemon master without having thorough knowledge on water pokmeon. Besides, a lot of these pokemon actually belong to Professor Oak. I take care of them for him so he tells me all about them so I can look after them properly. He even asks me to conduct really small experiments for his research from time to time, ones he trusts I can handle." Gold followed behind Misty with his hands behind his head as she lead him to what seemed like a more private section of the gym with all the aquariums now gone from sight. Gold had no idea Misty did all these things for Professor Oak. Then again, Blue, Read, and Green didn't talk about her much, and Misty wasn't well acquainted with Yellow. Most of what he's heard about Misty came from Lyra but, now that they were back in Johto, Lyra didn't have much to say anymore that was new.

"How's Lyra?" Misty asked. Gold jumped from his spot and looked her skeptically. She had asked with such great timing that he had to wonder if she had read his mind with that woman's intuition thing they kept hearing about.

"Lyra's fine," he started, "she misses you a lot though. I swear I thought she was going to tear me apart for not taking her with me on my trip to Kanto." Gold huffed, a humorous pout on his face.

"It's not even my fault though. She's busy helping Professor Elm back in Johto and has no time to come to Kanto so she shouldn't be getting jealous of me." Misty laughed a little.

"That's sweet in a way. Can you tell her that I miss her too?" Gold raised a brow and looked her over and, when not finding the thing he was looking for, surveyed the room, noting that it looked like a living room.

"You got a phone? Why don't you tell her yourself, I'll give you her number." Misty nodded and quickly walked into a room on the opposite side, leaving Gold by himself. He took a seat on one of the couches and made little observations. He had heard that many gym leaders simply chose to live in their gyms because it makes it more convenient for them, but this was the first time he's ever actually been in one of those sectioned off areas preserved solely for the gym leader. The room was fairly small with an open kitchen off to the side. The room Misty had just gone into was probably her own room and there was probably a bathroom down the hall.

Gold took the liberty to stretch his back. Although the room was humble and had all the potential to be warm and inviting, there was something oddly cold in the air. Like it's hardly ever been lived in. Even the furniture seemed to be hardly used. The couches, chairs, bookshelves, and all the other decorations she had were clean and shiny, but looked as if they were hardly touched by anything besides cleaning supplies. The couch he was sitting on barely gave way under her weight and stretched awkwardly to his backside as if no one had ever sat in it before.

"Here." Misty's voice and the phone thrown into his lap scared him out of his thinking.

"Hey! You don't have to scare me!" He yelled. Misty shrugged her shoulders, something she's been doing a lot to time lately.

"You shouldn't have been dozing off." Gold grumbled as he picked up the phone and dialed in Lyra's number and, on a moments thought, added his own.

"You never told me how you met Lyra, by the way. And Lyra doesn't tell me anything about it either," he said as he snapped the phone closed and placed it beside him on the couch.

"Oh, she never told you?" Misty asked as she walked into the open kitchen. "Well, it's not really anything special. Unlike you, who just barged into my gym and left without a second thought once you won, Lyra actually found me by accident.

"I guess she came to Cerulean City to ask for a gym battle but, at the time she visited the gym, I was out with someone at Cerulean's North Cape when she came along and scared him off." At this point in the story, Misty rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly.

"After he ran off, I got pretty annoyed and called her pest but, after she asked for a gym battle, I got over it pretty quickly. She lost the first time but won the rematch and got herself one of my badges. Then she called again for another rematch and won that too. That's about it. She used to keep in touch with letters, sending whatever flying type pokemon she could get her hands on, until she started getting more involved with Professor Elm's research." Misty bent down below the counter and out of his sight as he heard the clang and clatter of dishes being moved around.

"Oh. It's been a while since Lyra started helping out Professor Elm more; about seven months now she's been too busy for most things. No wonder she misses you so much!" He finished with a grin.

"Hey, what are you doing?" He asked as Misty dropped a pan loudly on the stove and began rummaging through her fridge.

"Making breakfast. Did you eat any before you came here? Or are you still hungry? I can make you some," she offered. Gold quickly made his way to the table and sat himself down in one of the chairs.

"Yes! Free food! As long as you promise not to poison me, I'm all for it! I heard something from Green once that your cooking was lethal. A new development for chemical warfare." Misty scoffed.

"That's Green, the pampered rich boy from Pallet Town. Besides, I've gotten much better!" She explained.

"Really?" He asked, drawling out the world comically to show that he didn't believe her.

"Hey now…"

««« »»»

"Now Degong! Use surf!"

"Whoo! Go Misty!" Misty had to keep from burying her hands in her face to hide her embarrassment. After they had eaten breakfast, and Gold spent a good ten minutes teasing her on her decent cooking, he had helped her maintain the gym. Misty was surprised that the pokemon, especially her pokemon, had taken to him so well so soon. They didn't have a problem with him being the one to feed them, nor did he have a problem with him rinsing them off and giving them a brief clean while Misty changed the water in the aquarium. She wasn't expecting this to go so well. Usually, on days like these—"days like these" referring to days where she spends extra time in the morning to maintain her gym—she would have to open the gym two or three hours late, then close early to wipe down the rest of her gym. With Gold's help, she opened up her gym only an hour late. But now that Gold didn't have anything to do, he saw fit to cheer her on from the sidelines for every battle she's been challenged to so far.

_If he had nothing to do_, Misty wondered, _why he didn't just leave_.

After the battle was through and Misty had her third consecutive win that day, Misty took the opportunity to pull Gold aside so that they could have a chat about his cheering routine.

"Why not?" He asked when Misty asked him, quite loudly, to knock it off.

"It's embarrassing and you're distracting the trainers!"

"Who said I'm distracting the trainers? If anything, I'm helping them! They'll need to get used to crowds much louder than me if they plan on making it to the leagues." Rubbing her temples in frustration Misty sighed.

"Why do you feel the need to cheer me on anyway?" She asked.

"'Cause I know you, not the opponent. Of course I'd cheer for you," he explained like it was the simplest thing in the world. A small pout made its way onto her face, although it wasn't really a displeased pout. She liked the noise of someone else in her gym. She liked how, with Gold eating breakfast with her, her small apartment in the back of the gym felt a little cozier than before.

"Misty?" Misty's head snapped up in surprised and looked at Gold a little flustered.

"Yeah?" Gold nodded his head at the entrance.

"There's a challenger here for you." Misty turned to look and, like Gold had said, there stood a challenger with a head full of green hair standing nervously by the door.

"Sorry!" She called from the other side of the gym. "Can you give me a second?" The challenger nodded his head, confused but complying. Misty pushed Gold further down the hall and out of sight.

"Can you please, please, not cheer for this one? If you need something to do, I need someone to pick up some more pokeblock and other stuff from the post office. I ordered some from a place in Hoenn and Sinnoh." Gold reeled back insulted and was about to tell her that he absolutely will not when her eyes grew large and watery. They gazed up at him, shinning and slowly furrowing together and her lips screwed into a weird line. His conscious twitched and he found himself being unable to deny her request. He groaned.

"Fine whatever," he mumbled and he walked out of their makeshift hiding spot and made his way out the door, passing the trainer.

"You owe me for this!" He yelled once he was out the door.

"Fine! Thank you!" Misty called back.

"So," she started, turning to face the trainer. "You want to battle? You don't look like you're from around here." The trainer shook his head, all nervousness gone now that it was just him and the gym leader. How embarrassing would it have been if he lost in front of Gold, the infamous trainer from Johto?

"No ma'am. I'm from Petalburg City in the Hoenn region. My name's Wally." Misty smiled at the newcomer and led him to his platform.

"Welcome to Kanto Wally," she said with a smile, her greeting far more chirper than it had been before. "Now, choose your first pokemon."

««« »»»

"Gosh that girl!" Gold yelled as he and his typhlosion walked through the city, large bags of pokeblock, poffins, and other pokemon food. Explotaro gave a cry next to him, looking longingly into the bags hanging off his arms.

"Yeah I know Explotaro. I'll ask her to give you some when we get there." Gold gave his shoulders a good shake to loosen them up before continuing to walk through the city. A pout curved his lips and refused to leave his face as he passed by many faces and places. Whatever. Who cared if Misty didn't want him to cheer for her? She's missing out on all the winning juju and telepathic champion vibes he could be sending her right now. It's her loss, not his.

He hadn't been planning on sticking around Misty for as long as he was. And he certainly wasn't expecting to plan to keep sticking around when he left Johto. In all honesty, visiting Misty while he was in Kanto never crossed his mind. He just wanted a small break for his pokemon and himself since even he was getting tired of battling. But, now that he had struck up this strange friendship with Misty, he wasn't planning on passing it up, not only for Misty's sake, but for his own as well. He could tell that Misty was happier now that she had him as company. It felt a bit heavy on his chest to know that he was probably held an important role in her present situation, but part of him was also honored to be the one she had to rely on. It was that virtual dependency that helped Gold feel better; not because he wanted to be in control of someone, but because he wanted to feel like he was helping someone with something important. Sure, Professor Elm's work was important, but it just didn't have the same feel. With Misty, it was like it could almost fall to pieces if he chose to leave the part (something he had no intention of doing) and it would be hard to pick herself up if she fell. It wasn't just "do this for me" or "get that for me" because "this research is key to my hypothesis and could further the human understanding of so-and-so." It was more like "if you do this for her, this will happen," and "you can do this for her to make her better," all accompanied with an "only if you choose to do so. You can choose to walk out if you want to." With Professor Elm, he felt disposable. With Misty, he felt needed. Which was funny because every time Professor Elm asked him to do something, it felt mandatory, but everything he could be doing for Misty was optional.

That was pretty heavy thinking considering he's only talked to her for maybe around a day.

"Man these bags are heavy," he complained as his arms began to tire out, distracting himself from his uncalled for, and probably presumptuous, train of thought. Beside him Explotaro just gave him a curious look, wondering what there would be to complain about.

"You just don't feel it because you're a pokemon and therefore much stronger," Gold told him sulkily.

"Maybe you should start working out." Knowing without a doubt that Explotaro couldn't have said that, Gold turned around quickly to see Green standing behind him, his lips maybe curled into what might have been a smirk. But that was debatable. One could never tell with Green, and his eyes never gave him away. Not before and most certainly not now.

"Green?" He asked just to be sure he wasn't a heat-induced hallucination. It was another scorching hot day in Cerulean City.

"Who else?" He exclaimed blandly, approaching the younger Johto trainer. Gold immediately grinned and rushed over to meet him, his typhlosion lagging behind a little, being not too fond of the spiky-headed trainer. Gold had a sneaking suspicion it was because one of Green's favorite and strongest pokemon was a blastoise—a water-type—and his typhlosion was a fire-type.

"What are you doing here in Kanto, especially Cerulean City? And why didn't you tell anyone?" Green asked in his low, monotone kind of way. Gold blinked.

"Why not be here in Kanto? And why not Cerulean City?" He asked. Green gave a shrug (Gold wondered if it was a new fad coming up in Kanto) and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

"Just wondering, now answer the questions." How like Green, just as serious and rudely blunt as always.

"I came to Kanto for a bit of a breather if you really need to know," Gold said with a dignified sniff. "And I didn't tell anyone 'cause I didn't want to get tempted into some serious training so soon in my vacation. As for why I'm here in Cerulean City…" Gold lifted up his arms to display the plastic bags weighed down with food hanging off his arms. Explotaro did the same, trying his best to showcase the goods as well as he could, considering that his arms were a bit small and stubby compared to the rest of his larger size.

"I'm helping Misty out with some stuff at the gym." Green blinked, one of the most outward expressions of surprise Gold's ever seen from him. Yet Gold only broadened his grin as Green continued to stare at him.

"Misty? As in Misty, Misty?" He asked.

"Well, to tell you the truth it's been pretty sunny and clear around Misty, and the weather forecast promises a near ninety-six percent of clear skies and sunshine for the rest of this week. But yeah, Misty, the Cerulean City gym leader." Green frowned (even more), not finding Gold's joke very funny. Gold wasn't offended though, since Green rarely found anything besides the suffering of his opponents very joy inducing.

"…Since when were you and Misty close?" He asked. Following what seemed to the latest trend amongst skilled trainers in Kanto, Gold shrugged his shoulders.

"Really, I just had my first real talk with her yesterday." Green smirked, the only other expression besides a blank anyone knew he could make.

"You just started talking to her yesterday and you're already doing her grocery shopping? Aren't you whipped." Gold bristled at Green's comment and quickly made to disprove it.

"I'm not whipped!" He yelled. "I'm just doing a favor since she's become a new friend of mine is all!" Green scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Can you really call her a friend when you've only known her for a day? No, probably less?" Gold scowled.

"Whatever. It's a step in the right direction at the very least. Now, if you'll excuse me—which you don't have to because I'm leaving anyway—I have pokemon food to deliver so that Misty's and Professor Oak's pokemon don't starve." Gold swerved on his heel and began walking away from Green and towards the gym, Explotaro following faithfully behind him. He wasn't expecting Green to jog up beside him.

"What do you mean by 'Misty's and Professor Oak's' pokemon?" He asked. Gold didn't bother to look in his direction as he continued walking but answered anyway.

"Misty's taking care of all of Professor Oak's water pokemon. She even conducts really small experiments for him if he thinks she can handle it. Didn't you know?" Green's lips twitched into a scowl. No, this was certainly news to him. He had no idea.

"When was this?" He questioned further. Gold turned to face him this time and raised a brow.

"You sure don't know a lot huh? While Misty was planning the renovations for her gym, Professor Oak offered to cover half the cost as long as she agreed to draw up new plans to accommodate not only her pokemon, but his as well. The professor tells her all about the pokemon she's taking care of so she can look after them properly and even pays for his own pokemon's expenses. With you being his grandson and all—and a fellow Kanto gym leader—I would have thought that at least one of them would have told you." Gold explained.

"Misty's gym had renovations?" The Johto trainer's lips puzzled.

"How far out of the loop are you?" Without further comment, Gold fastened his pace to Misty's gym. Green stayed back, fishing through his memories for any instance either his grandfather or Misty might have told him this. If he tried extremely hard, he could remember brief flashes and muffled words of something akin to what Gold had just told him coming from both Misty and his grandfather. At the time, he hadn't supposed it was anything worth noting, preferring to occupy his thoughts with ideas of challenging Red to a rematch, furthering Yellow's training, and having Blue raise some of his weaker pokemon for a small while.

Something a little like guilt stirred in his mind. He really should have known. And he would have known if he had just paid a little more attention to Misty. He hadn't really been paying any of his "friends" outside of the pokedex-holder circle much attention lately but, really, Misty did deserve a little more attention. He met her a lot, with both of them being gym leaders in the same region. She was the one to help him get settled as a gym leader and showed him the ropes (being a gym leader was different than what he had expected). She was always the one to come to him and start conversations whenever they saw each other on the streets or, more often, at conferences and summits. She was always the one to call him just to talk.

At that thought, a realization hit him and he quickly withdrew his phone from his pocket. A few quick button presses, and he was sifting through his call history. He seemed to be searching for quite a while until he found what he was looking for, and it surprised him a little. She had stopped calling him about six months ago. Why hadn't he noticed? As he continued to sift further into his older call history, he discovered the change wasn't abrupt, probably the main reason he hadn't noticed before. She had started calling fewer and fewer times until it all ended with that one call six months ago.

He stared at his phone for a while before stuffing it back into his pocket. The reason he was out of the gym today was because he had some business he needed to attend to, and he had to see it completed.

He made a note to give Misty a call as soon as he had some free time and a good conversation in mind.

««« »»»

Gold had burst through the gym doors, as well as he could with bags of pokemon food hanging off his arms, expecting to catch at least the very last bits of the battle against that green-headed kid who came earlier. What he got was a nice view of Misty handing said green-headed kid one of her Cascade badges. His jaw dropped. This kid—who was shaking at the entrance of her gym—actually managed to beat her!?

"Oh, you're back quicker than I thought," Misty commented. She walked over to his typhlosion and gave him a small smile while taking the bags from his rather small arms. Explotaro smiled back, letting out a happy "graa" and followed after her into the gym, leaving Gold gaping at the door.

"You going to come in?" She asked him. As she passed by the trainer, she smiled at him.

"Congratulations! That was a really long battle; I wasn't expecting for it draw out so long. That badge is well deserved." Wally smiled shyly and quickly made it out the door.

Gold jogged up to Misty to see her rummaging through one of the bags to pull out a poffin and hand it to his Explotaro. His typhlosion took it with a grateful cry before chowing down on it.

"That kid actually beat you in a battle?!" Gold asked her incredulously. Misty nodded her head as she led them back to her little apartment in the back of the gym.

"He's much better than he looks. He dragged out the battle for a long time, and he was well prepared too. Besides his gardevior, all his pokemon were either grass type or electric type." Gold huffed, walking loudly into Misty's living room. Misty laughed a little under her breath.

"Why are you so upset?" She asked. "I'm the one who lost."

"Whatever. It's nothing." Gold was behaving like a little kid despite his grown age. Explotaro shook his head at his own trainer's behavior before offering his paws to Misty in askance for another poffin.

"If you say so," said Misty as she gave Explotaro another poffin. She placed the bags on the table and walked over to her bookshelf, pulling out a standard binder from inside. She dropped it on the table rather carelessly and started opening cupboards, withdrawing boxes of various sizes from inside. Gold watched curiously as she placed them by the foot of the table. He placed the bags he was carrying on the table, trying to sneak a peak into the boxes' contents. They were empty except for the dividers set inside.

Misty opened the binder and withdrew several papers that were tucked in the inside pocket. After taking out a pen from a pencil case she kept secured in the rings, she flipped through the pages that were also bound by the metal clamps. A lot of the papers were charts that had marks all over them, Gold noted. Most of the time it was just checkmarks, x's, and numbers. But, on the occasion, there were notes written neatly anywhere there seemed to be available room. Misty had stopped flipping through the pages when she reached a page that was only half filled markings. She wrote the date in one of the boxes off to the side of the margin and began referring to the papers she had pulled out earlier.

"What are you doing?" Gold asked, seeing it as a fairly easy question.

"Rationing out the food," was Misty's simple reply.

"You need all this just to ration out food?!" Gold exclaimed. Misty looked up at him for a moment before pulling pokemon food from the bags.

"Yeah well since I started helping out Professor Oak, I've been keeping a more careful record of what both our pokemon eat. The professor's very particular about their diet and asked me to start logging it. He even sends me memos if he wants something to change or if he wants to stress something to stay the same." She motioned to the thin stack of papers she had pulled out.

"And you keep all of them?"

"Just because he sometimes refers to certain diets when he wants me to switch to an old diet for one of his pokemon. Usually he'll just phrase it like 'can you switch so-and-so's diet to the one we used two weeks ago?' or something like that." She told him off-handedly. Gold leaned over the table, his face in his hand.

"Sounds like a pain," he commented. He watched as Misty kept referring back to the small stack of free papers on the table before taking a certain amount of pokeblock, poffins, and the usual pokemon food and placing them between the divided sections in the boxes. She'd write in the charts afterwards, blank ink forming a number followed by some kind of unit of measurement, leaving a space underneath for a checkmark or an x. Gold had spent so long just sitting there at the table with Misty as she worked that he had fallen asleep on the table.

The sound of the videophone ringing scared him awake. He was so caught off guard that he didn't register the slight addition of weight on his shoulders, but he clutched at it his surprise.

Misty, on the other hand, had practically froze in the middle of her work. Her teeth clenched behind her lips and her grip on her pen grew rigid.

"That must be Professor Oak," she said quietly. "…He called earlier asking for you, and said he'd call again when I told him you left to run an errand for me. Sorry I hadn't told you earlier." Gold instantly relaxed and grinned at her.

"No problem!" He said as he stood from the table. "You should take a break," he commented, "you sound tired." Misty nodded and stood up herself, putting everything in order for when she got back to it.

"Yeah, I think I will. The videophone's down the other hall." Gold nodded and left to find the persistently ringing videophone. Misty busied herself with pretending like she was still organizing some things until he was out of site. Then, as she settled against the wall, guilt and a feeling of wrong encompassed her.

««« »»»

"Hey Professor Oak! How's it hanging?" Gold asked quite loudly as he answered the phone. The professor made a disgruntled sound.

"Please Gold, can't you be a little more polite in your greetings. I am your elder you know."

"Don't old people feel younger when us spring chickens talk to them like this?" Gold asked.

"NO WE DO NOT!" The professor yelled loudly, his face so close to the camera Gold almost thought he was pop out of the screen. The professor coughed as he composed himself.

"Well it seems that you're alright. Still mostly the same I see," the professor commented. Gold grinned broadly, revealing his canines.

"Well it takes more than time to age me, unlike some people." That set the professor off. After spending ten minutes teasing the professor, and the professor spending ten minutes trying to explain that he was young at heart damn it, and that's all that counted, Gold decided to get to business.

"So what'd you call me for Doc?" Gold asked. The professor pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Don't call me that. Anyway, Gary told me you were in Cerulean City and helping Misty out at the gym. How are things going?" Gold gazed at the screen skeptically.

"…Pretty good. Misty's a pretty cool person. She's definitely gotten a little stronger than when I last met her, but just a little if I had to be honest." The professor nodded and hummed.

"That's understandable. She's tied down to the gym; she can't improve as much or as quickly as a traveling trainer. She doesn't get to experience much and she's stuck battling new trainers most of the time. Someone like her definitely can't gain more battle wisdom fighting trainers who can barely memorize their own pokemon's attacks." The professor paused here to add a nod.

"And my pokemon? Has she shown you them? How are they?" Gold's eye lit up faster than a pikachu's thunderbolt.

"Yeah she showed me! They're so awesome! You didn't tell me you had water pokemon from not just Kanto and Johto, but Hoenn and Sinnoh too! And they're looking great! Don't worry, Misty's hands are better than any other to place your water pokemon in." The professor laughed.

"I have no doubt in Misty's ability to raise my pokemon, I just haven't seem them for myself in a long time." Gold nodded in understanding and leaned back into the chair he was sitting in.

"Okay, now that pleasantries are done, what'd you want to talk to me about Doc?" Professor Oak's eyebrows twitched in annoyance, but he took a deep breath to keep the irritation at bay.

"How would you like to stay in Pallet Town for a while?" The professor offered. Gold froze in his chair and looked at the professor's image on the screen in shock.

"Why?" He asked, not at all excited about leaving for Pallet Town. The professor eyed his reaction strangely. He was sure the bright-eyed lad would jump at the opportunity to stay in the same town Red came from, even if he didn't plan on doing any training. The professor was also hoping that the Johto trainer's presence would tempt the near-ghost-like figure that was Red from Mt. Moon.

"I was hoping you would help me with some experiments," the professor explained. That wasn't exactly a lie, because he was indeed hoping the boy and his pokemon would help him with his research.

"Sorry but you don't really need me for that," Gold refuted almost as soon as he was provided an explanation. The grin on his face was gone now, replaced with a small frown.

"And you're needed there?" The professor asked. The question was innocent. He didn't mean to provoke anything, but the question still hit Gold like a ton of bricks.

"…" Gold really had nothing he could say. Yeah, he felt that he was needed here, in the city, in the gym, with Misty. But he couldn't say that without sounding weird. It would sound like he liked her, as in really liked her. Like how he swore Silver liked Blue. No, he just felt needed, and he didn't want to abandon anyone who needed him because it was the first time in a long time something depended on him.

He wanted to bury his face in his hands and groan. It was like he was facing withdrawals! Withdrawals from the days when some masked menace was running around, he and Silver had just started their rivalry, and he had just met Red, Yellow, Blue, and Green. It wasn't the battles he missed. It was the feeling that he was of some major importance. Like he was a key part in something bigger than himself. And he was so selfish for sticking around Misty because she fed that withdrawal and kept the hunger away.

When the silence stretched on for too long, the professor cleared his throat.

"It's only for a month, Gold. I would just be running a few tests on yourself and your pokemon. Trying to figure out how you manage to make eggs hatch so quickly more precisely. I also just want to test the bond between you and your pokemon to see if the link between trainers and their pokemon really are as powerful as their famed fairytales tell us." When Gold still didn't say anything, the professor sighed.

"I can't call anyone else right now, Gold. Red's unreachable on Mt. Moon, Green's busy managing the Viridian City Gym, Blue's off to who knows where training her pokemon and doing who knows what, and Yellow is busy trying to open up her own small clinic to heal pokemon in the Viridian Forest. And, as you know, Crystal, Lyra, and Silver are all busy in Johto helping Professor Elm.

"Just one month, Gold, that's all I'm asking for. You can stay with Delia, Red's mom. You remember her right? Well, she has a spare bedroom next to Red's old room where you can stay for your time here, and she can take care of you. She misses having a son around now that Red never comes down from Mt. Moon." Gold's brows furrowed as his teeth clenched. He was a lady's man (or so he likes to think) but mothers really were a weak point of his. He hates seeing any good mother sad or underappreciated.

"…Just one month right? When do I leave?" He asked.

"Two weeks from now." Gold nearly fell off his chair.

"Two weeks from now?!" Gold exclaimed. "Why so soon?!"

"The next month starts two weeks from now, Gold. And it's not that soon; you still have plenty of time to hang out with Misty," the professor exclaimed. "I'll send Gary to pick you up then and have him call you tomorrow." Gold opened his mouth to protest, but he couldn't say anything. He had already technically agreed hadn't he? He couldn't go complaining now.

"…Alright…" the young man consented sulkily. Professor Oak gave him a small smile.

"Thank you Gold," stated the professor. "And nice blanket you have there around your shoulders." He commented, hoping to lighten the boy's mood before ending the video call.

The screen went blank as Gold looked over at his shoulders to see a blue blanket with starmie patterns on it draped around his shoulders. When had that gotten here? Had it been there the whole time? Then he noticed that one of his hands were clenched around it. Had he been clutching it the whole time?

His typhlosion came up next to him and let out a series of teasing "graas."

"I was not a scared baby! A scared baby wouldn't clutch onto a blanket if they're scared!" His typhlosion gave him a look of doubt and gave a cry that sounded like it too.

"Okay, so babies do do that, but why would I, a grown young man, be clutching a blanket?" Explotaro let out a bland "graa," the answer being so obvious.

"I AM NOT A SCARED BABY!"

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"I AM NOT A SCARED BABY!" Misty couldn't bring herself to smile at Gold's childish behavior as she got up from her place on the wall and snuck her way into the aquarium.

Gold was leaving, but she was being selfish, selfish and scared. She didn't want Gold to leave because, for the first time in what seemed like forever, she felt remembered and not alone. As for what scared her, oh Arceus, so many things scared her. What if Gold got hurt on his way there? What if the weather was bad?

…What if he was happy there? Happier than he is here? What if he didn't want to leave? What if he forgot about her?

What if she was left alone again?

It all made her want to dive into a shallow pool and hurt herself. She had no right to keep Gold with her, she knew that, but she felt like she wanted to try anyway. She leaned against the aquarium, touching her forehead against the glass, not caring about the oils from her skin leaving a mark on the surface. The pokemon inside the aquarium gathered around her trying to get as close to her as the glass would permit them.

Misty gave them a small smile and lifted her head. She absentmindedly wiped at the smudge on the glass with her sleeve before walking away. She needed to sleep.

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Word Count: 7,192 / Pages: 16  
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